On the trail of SS accused Siert Bruins

A 92-year-old man is on
trial in Germany, accused of murdering a member of the Dutch resistance
nearly 70 years ago. The case is one of many ghosts that have yet to be
laid to rest in the farming country of the Dutch-German borderland.

It is sugar beet season in the far north-east of the
Netherlands, a stone's throw from Germany, and an elderly woman is
buttering currant buns and making coffee for farm-workers digging up the
crop.

Berendina Maring-Dijkema, now 88, was a teenager during the
war. She has vivid memories of a community quietly united against the
German occupiers.

Many of the farmers here were part of the resistance to a
greater or lesser degree. Some were prepared to hide men wanted for
forced labour in Germany, Jews, or fellow resistance fighters....